“Hey, are you okay?” the girl next to me, Clare, whispered as our tutor walked in. I shrugged and gave her a small smile because it was nice to know someone cared enough to ask. Then I lifted my eyes as Mr Donnalley began to go through the morning announcements and take the register, keeping them firmly fixed on the date written in faded blue whiteboard pen at the top right-hand corner. At least when Donnalley was speaking no one looked at me or tried to talk to me. The police might have told us to stick to our usual routine, but I guessed that they hadn’t factored in the effect of gossip in a small town. The school day hadn’t even officially begun, and I was already headline news. As soon as the bell rang for 1st period I pretty much ran out of the room, the need to get away almost making me run straight out of school.
No. You have to stay in be normal.
Frantically, I looked around until I spotted the toilets sign and ran towards that instead. Luckily all the cubicles were empty, something that was unusual for just before 1st period when normally most of the girls were in here to fix up their makeup. Finally, it seemed I had caught a break. I was well overdue for one. Locking the cubicle door, I sank onto the closed lid of the toilet and took a few deep breaths. This wasn’t going away any time soon, even if Eli turned up safe and well in time for dinner. This was the kind of thing that this town didn’t let go, even if it wasn’t said to our faces. I’d worked so hard to keep everything of my personal life tucked away, to be perfect and it had crashed down in a matter of hours. If Eli had been here, he would have known what to do.
Oh God. Eli. Where are you?
I felt the tears spill onto my bottom lashes in a waterfall I couldn’t hold back any longer. Burying my face in my hands, I let myself cry, for the third time today. It wasn’t even lunchtime yet. I was going to be severely dehydrated by 2nd period if I kept this up. In between sobs, I dimly registered the door to the toilets swinging open followed by soft footsteps. A pair of black boots appeared outside the cubicle door. I dropped my hands from my face as the boots waited.
“B-becca?” I managed to splutter out her name, even though it got caught on the phlegm in my throat.
“Hey A. Can I come in?” her voice was soft, and I knew she would be making puppy dog eyes at the closed door with her hands behind her back. It was her tactic to getting what she wanted, and it usually worked. Leaning forward, I slid the lock to the side, letting the door swing back on its own. I knew in my head that I looked a mess but that was confirmed by the momentary shock on Becca’s face. She rushed in and knelt down in front of me, grabbing both of my hands, “Oh sweetie. I’m so sorry. When Jake and I heard, we drove over to yours. We didn’t think you’d be at school today. Then your parents told us you’d come in and had seemed fine, so I knew something like this was gonna happen.” I smiled at her through tear stained cheeks. They’d skipped school for me.
“You skipped school for me?” My voice trembled halfway through, but it was coherent at least. Becca nodded and pulled me in for a hug, evidently not caring (or, for my sake, not showing it) that she was now kneeling on the floor of a toilet cubicle.
“Of course we did A, you know we wouldn’t let you be alone. In fact…” she bit her lip and looked back over your shoulder. “Jake’s waiting outside for us. He wanted to come in, but I didn’t know if you were the only person in here or not. I’ll go get him.” She pushed herself up from the floor and managed to almost successfully hide her grimace before spinning round so fast her boot squeaked. I watched her go before realising what she’d said.
“NO!” My yell surprised even me, “I mean, no he shouldn’t come in the toilets. I don’t need you two getting into more trouble. I’ll come out.” I wiped my eyes on the back of the jumper, pushing away the unbidden reminder that this was actually Eli’s and stood up from the toilet seat. Becca had paused by the door, one hand extended to grab the handle but as I drew level with her, she grabbed my hand instead and gave it a squeeze. With her free hand, she grabbed the door and flung it open, ushering me out. Luckily everyone was in lessons now, so the only person out there was someone I didn’t mind seeing. Jacob was leaning against the wall, arms crossed but as soon as the door opened, he jumped up. His eyes darted from my face to mine and Becca’s hands to my jumper and in a matter of seconds I found myself enveloped in another hug. I dropped Becca’s hand and returned the hug, the leather of his jacket cool against my wrists. We stayed like that for a few seconds, me breathing in the smell of his body wash, him with his chin resting on the top of my hair. Jacob and Becca had been my closest friends for as long as I could remember. We’d had playdates at each other’s houses ages 2 through 10 and then we’d renamed it ‘hanging out’ and continued. I knew there were a lot of rumours around school about me dating Jacob or me dating Becca and yeah, if we weren’t like family, I would have probably dated either one of them, but they were just like a part of me, and it worked. We never left anyone out, we teased each other equally about our crushes and we never left each other hurting. Next to Eli, they were my favourite people in the world. Feeling a bit better than the soul-crushing despair I’d been experiencing previously, I stepped back from Jacob’s chest, cringing as I noticed the tearstains I’d left on his grey top. He looked down when he saw my face and shook his head,
“Don’t worry about it A, it will dry. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’d done it on purpose just to get my top off.” I snorted despite myself and he grinned at me. Becca took my hand again and Jacob slung an easy arm around my shoulders, and they led me outside to one of the benches. I knew neither of them wanted to ask the question, so I beat them to it, looking down at my hands.
“The police think Eli was kidnapped.” There was a small intake of breath from Becca and I felt Jacob move closer to me, arm tightening on my shoulder, “I woke up this morning to my mum screaming and when I got to Eli’s room, it was a mess. It looked like it had been torn apart. The police sent a forensics investigator round and he found a blood splatter and a used needle, which they think was used to drug Eli to get him out silently. I don’t know why his room was such a tip if they drugged him though.” I hadn’t thought of it before, but now that I had, more questions kept piling up. “How did we not hear anything? How did they get a grown man out the window?” I trailed off and the questions hung in the air. Jacob was the first to respond,
“Maybe the room wasn’t torn up in a struggle. Maybe it was torn up because they were looking for something.” I turned to look at him,
“Like what? It’s Eli! The only interesting thing he can do is draw. I seriously doubt they wanted pictures of lions that he drew for me years ago.” But even as I said it, I thought of the notebook tucked away in my room. What if there was something in there that they wanted?
“I’m sure they’ll find him A. They couldn’t have had much of a head start.” Becca rested her head on my shoulder. I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure I believed it.
“Have they told you to do anything?” I shook my head at Jacob.
“Apart from continue on with our routine as normal and tell them if Eli tries to contact me.” Jacob’s mouth twisted sympathetically, and he rubbed my shoulder. “I guess now all we can do is wait.”
I guess now all we can do is wait.
Chapter 2
Three Years Later…
Waiting wasn’t getting me anywhere. I looked up at the queue in front of me, then back at my watch. I wasn’t even sure I had time for this. I was supposed to be meeting Becca and Jake in half an hour on the other side of town. The line moved an inch, the mousey-haired cashier looking perpetually bored as she rattled off the same spiel.
“Hi. Welcome to the Coffee Cup. Can I take your order?”
“Hi, yeah can I have a hot chocolate with whipped cream and…” Eli looked down at me, “What do you want Ari?” I glanced over at all the pictures of drinks on the board and pointed to the most colourful one. Eli sighed and shook his head, but he was grinning, “She’ll have the Rainbow Smoothie please.” H
e passed over some cash and nudged me, “Don’t tell Mum okay, she’ll freak. I’m pretty sure it’s not fresh fruit.” I laughed,
“I won’t tell mum, I promise…iffffff…” I looked at him expectantly,
“If what?” The cashier handed him his change and he pocketed it, steering me towards the pick-up section.
“If you draw me a giraffe!” I grinned, bouncing up and down and he laughed again, ruffling up my hair even though I’d asked him not to do that anymore.
“Sure. I’ll draw you one when we sit down, okay?”
“Miss? Miss are you okay?” I blinked, shaking my head as the cashier’s bored voice invaded my thoughts. She was wearing a slightly concerned expression, though I suspect the concern was more based on her need to move the line along than actual human compassion.
Where the hell did that memory come from?
“Yeah, I’m fine, sorry. Can I get a passionfruit iced tea please? Large.” I passed my card over the card reader, waiting for the beep and shoved it back in my purse before wandering down to the pick-up section. I had no idea where that memory had come from. Eli had been missing for almost three years now and I’d been in this café almost once a week. It had never happened before. I grabbed my iced tea and made my way over to one of the tables, still pondering the sudden flashback.
The police had pretty much given up the search for Eli after a couple of months. None of their leads turned up anything and the forensics team came up with jack shit. They’d told us they would continue looking but that we should be prepared that we might not find him. No one had contacted us either, for a ransom or to threaten us. It was like Eli had just disappeared off the face of the earth. Initially my parents refused to take the police’s answer and they hired private investigators to keep searching for him. Twelve months of that, and one very hefty bill, and it seemed like all the fight had gone out of them. The most the PI’s had been able to do was find a van that had been parked on our street that night, but by the time they located it, it had been dumped and abandoned. So, they’d given up as well. It had taken a while but even the town seemed to forget. We were hot gossip for near on a year and then, like a switch had been flicked, it was as if it never happened. Apparently, our tragedy gossip had a shelf life. I’d graduated school, Becca had gone to uni, Jake got a job in his dad’s company and I… well I didn’t do that much. Or at least, not that my parents knew about.
Since the PI’s gave up, and the police only called every few months to half-heartedly update us, I figured it fell to me. My parents had simply redecorated around the elephant in the room. Literally. Eli’s room was now an office. So, whilst they had been working and pretending they weren’t missing a son, I had been searching on my own. I started where the PI’s had left off, trying to find the owners of the van. I hadn’t found much, but I’d managed to track it to a petrol station and that, at least, gave me something. So, for the past two years, I’d followed leads, each one never leading to much, but at least I was trying. I read and re-read Eli’s notebook, the only thing I had left of him. I worked part-time at the local cinema, which was shit pay, but it meant I could fund my searching. I was even enrolled to an online university course; Forensics and Criminal Investigation, ironically. Maybe there is stock in the idea that if you want something done you should do it yourself. I carried on with my life, the entire time painfully aware that there was still an Eli shaped hole in it.
I told my parents I was fine. I told Becca and Jake that I was getting there. I told myself to keep searching.
I took a sip of the tea and winced as my teeth complained from the cold.
“Owww! Ow. Eli, I have brain freeze!” My voice screeched across the café, even though Eli was sat across from me. He shhhed me, taking away the Rainbow Smoothie that had been the cause of my outburst.
“Ari, you can’t just scream about it.” He was trying to sound harsh but we both knew he wasn’t mad. I quietened though, sticking my tongue out to see if I could see the different colours. It mostly just looked dark green. Eli laughed at me then went back to his notebook. He always carried one with him, although I didn’t know why. He filled them with lots of writing and the occasional drawing. The drawings were mostly on my insistence; he was really good at drawing animals and I loved animals, so he would draw for me. Today it was a giraffe. Last week he’d drawn an entire herd of zebra running along the bottom of the page. It was like magic. I bounced in my seat as he shaded the last couple of spots on the giraffe’s neck before turning the notebook round and sliding it over to me. I let out a squeal as I looked at the drawing, the giraffe eating branches with cartoonish eyes and an extra-long neck. Next to the drawing, Eli had scribbled down some words.
“G…eh…nah…eh?” I frowned at the word at the top, hastily underlined. Eli took the notebook back from me,
“It says ‘gene’ Ari. It’s to do with DNA.” He passed me back my smoothie, which I happily accepted, latching on to the straw and drinking as fast as I could, brain freeze already forgotten. Eli laughed at me again, then went back to his notebook.
I snapped out of the flashback as I ran out of iced tea, the slurping sound startling me.
Let’s hope I didn’t pull any weird faces during that…
Luckily, it didn’t look like anyone cared. I breathed a sigh of relief, checking my phone…
Shit.
I had ten minutes to get to the bowling alley across town. Becca would never let me forget it if I was late again. Grabbing my bag and my jacket I raced out of the café and back to the car park.
---
I made it to the bowling alley with seconds to spare. Becca and Jacob were waiting outside for me, leaning up against Jake’s Audi. Becca had her arms crossed and Jake was laughing as I swung haphazardly into a parking space and raced over to them.
“I’m here! I’m not late. I made it.” I panted, watching Becca’s eyebrows quirk as she tried to hold back the laughter.
“You cut it a bit close A. What if we’d missed our slot?” The raised eyebrow got me as Jake looked down with exaggerated disapproval, mimicking Becca. I broke into peals of laughter and it wasn’t long before they both joined me. We made our way into the bowling alley, me in the middle, asking Becca about her journey back. She was at university in Wales, so she often chose to get a flight back rather than take the train or drive. Luckily, we made it in time for our slot and soon enough we’d squeezed our feet into suspiciously clean smelling bowling shoes and were typing names into the score board. I knew sometimes they both felt a little awkward around me when I brought up the topic of Eli; my ‘refusing to move on’ as my mum so kindly put it had caused a bit of a rift between us over the last year or so, especially since both Becca and Jake had gone on with their lives. I didn’t want to lose the only friends I had so I tried my best to keep any Eli talk to a minimum, but I needed to tell someone about the random flashback, and it could hardly be my parents.
“So…I had a weird flashback in the middle of Coffee Cup today.” I started as Jake finished entering our names. They both turned to look at me, so I continued, “It was a memory of me and Eli.” Something flitted across Becca’s face, but she covered it up quickly. I think she was concerned that I was spending too much time trying to find him. I never told them all of it, but they knew I’d been looking.
“A memory of what?” Jake asked as he started selecting his ball. I watched him pick up the heaviest one before wincing and putting it back down with careful concentration,
“A completely random one. We were in the Coffee Cup; I was about 8 so Eli was 14 and he’d taken me there to get drinks whilst our parents shopped. I had a Rainbow Smoothie and he drew me a giraffe in one of his notebooks.” Jake picked up a different ball, a deep emerald and tested the weight,
“Okay? So?” I could feel Becca watching me with concern as Jake got ready to bowl,
“So, it was weird. I haven’t had a memory of Eli pop up in a while and I’ve been in the Coffee Cup so many times in the last three
years. I couldn’t help thinking that maybe it meant something.” Becca put a hand on my knee.
“Maybe it meant that you want a Rainbow Smoothie.” Jake remarked over his shoulder as he stepped up to bowl. I looked at Becca and she smiled at me,
“Was there anything else in the memory?” I smiled back, grateful she was attempting to take it seriously.
“Yeah, I remember seeing the word ‘gene’ written in one of Eli’s notebooks. Obviously, I didn’t know what it meant, but I didn’t know he did either. Not at 14.” Becca’s eyebrows pulled together, a strand of hair falling across her face as she thought.
“Maybe it was for a school project?” she chewed her lip as she waited for my response.
I don’t think it was.
“Maybe.” I turned to look at the lane as Jake let out a whoop just in time to see him get his first strike of the night. It would be the first of many. I had spent a lot of time here with Jake and Becca over the years to know he would win. He strutted back over, flexing his muscles with a cocky grin,
“That is how it’s…
done!” Jake flashed me a dimpled smile as he dropped back down beside me. Becca stood up to bowl, muttering about people being big-headed.
“I’m sure she means that as a compliment.” Eli chimed in as we watched her throw a gutter ball. Jake high-fived Eli, who winked at me, then went back to his phone. Since we’d got here, he had been spending a lot of time looking at his emails. I leant over, trying to read the screen but he turned the phone away from me.
“Ari. What are you doing?” He said it with a smile but there was an undercurrent of something else there, something I hadn’t seen before on my easy-going brother. I pulled back, confused.
Under Loch and Key Page 3